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History of Sine Nomine Associates

In the Beginning... "Transforming Emerging Technology into Practical Business Solutions"

Sine Nomine Associates was founded by Adam Thornton, David Boyes, and Margarete Ziemer in 1999, and incorporated in the State of Delaware in 2000. Several of the engineers had previously worked or researched together in various combinations, their cooperation pre-dating the birth of Sine Nomine Associates by years, or even decades. The company was conceived as a research and development engineering firm committed to transforming emerging technology into practical business solutions. Since Sine Nomine Associates' inception, this goal has been the consistent lead theme for our expert team’s work, as well as the company’s vision and everyday practice.

During the SHARE conference in August, 2000, Sine Nomine Associates celebrated its official coming out as a leading IT research company, and it was rewarded by enthusiastic reception on the part of IT experts. Both Margarete Ziemer and Adam Thornton were awarded the much-coveted award of "Best Session"for their presentation introducing Linux to the IBM mainframe environment, which significantly contributed to the initial adoption of Linux (and other Open Source code), and which turned the declared-dead mainframe into a renaissance of business success for, and strategic investment by, IBM. As such, the announcement of the unlikely marriage created quite a stir, yet prepared the way for an industry trend later embraced by Fortune 500 enterprises.

In contrast to many a startup IT firm, Sine Nomine Associates’ customer list boasted Fortune 500 companies from the company's inception. Our successful execution of enterprise-level support for legacy or Open Source code, our rich menu of training offerings, coupled with mastery in delivery, and our commitment to sharing best practices and expertise in a series of regular publications in relevant industry magazines, turned initial customers into faithful repeat customers. Simultaneously, our evaluation and assessment services fulfilled a business need as real and pressing as that for creative yet solid design and engineering services.

Coming of Age... "Making Well-Informed and Well-Received Business Decisions"

Within just two years, Sine Nomine Associates succeeded in gaining a reputation as trusted advisors and valued independent industry experts to Fortune 200 companies. IBM’s invitation to our team to serve as “sanity check” and “trusted advisor” for their internal tri-annual product and services strategy meetings – along with only approximately eight of IBM’s largest corporate customers -- represents the most prominent example of the unique position that Sine Nomine Associates was being awarded. Starting in 2002, Sine Nomine Associates has been invited to evaluate, assess, advise, and improve practices for this IT world leader in making well-informed and well-received business decisions.

In 2003, in spite of the “burst of the bubble,” Sine Nomine Associates recorded profits, and it has remained profitable ever since. The following year, the leadership undertook an unproblematic shift: Adam Thornton requested to change his status from owner to employee, and this shift was completed without disruption or discord within the company; to date, Adam Thornton continues to be a core employee who happily supports the company’s continuous growth and success. While Sine Nomine Associates has been 100% privately owned and debt-free from its inception, the company then transitioned into a two-individual ownership and a woman-owned business. Our unwavering commitment to ethics and business values continues to reflect the personal values of the company’s owners, and it consistently embodies quality, ingenuity, honesty, and fair-pricing.

OpenAFS... "Leading Provider of Enterprise-Level Commercial Support for OpenAFS"

As a leading provider of enterprise-level commercial support for OpenAFS, Sine Nomine Associates has contributed significantly to the industry adoption and enhancements of OpenAFS, while preserving the file system’s origins and nature as an Open Source initiative. Our support engagements provided the framework for a multitude of enhancements and development tasks that, upon completion and review by the Elders, were included into the OpenAFS source tree. Our reputation as a vendor-neutral, independent and trusted advisor continues to flourish. This unfurling of success was a result of many evaluations and assessments that correctly predicted emerging major industry trends or technology developments. Specific and tangible products of our R&D work include the NJE bridge, an SSL Enabler tool, and innovative Open Source support offerings, to name but a few. Another larger R&D result was our native port of OpenSolaris to IBM’s System z mainframe, which was produced in 2007-2008, and which, for the first time, had joined two major competitors – Sun and IBM – in a project relevant to both parties’ core clientele.

Into the Future..."All the Way to the Not-Yet-Envisioned-Beyond"

Sine Nomine Associates is committed to continue its deeply-felt passion for “turning research into reality.” As a boutique firm, our focus will remain to serve our customers by providing rare-to-find legacy skills, and by delivering support for anything from the declared-outdated-but-still-valuable system all the way to the-not-yet-envisioned-beyond-the-bleeding-edge R&D solution in the world of IT innovation. Doing so puts us in the position to envision and create the “system after next.”